Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to a device for administering liquid eye medication, and more particularly to an eye drop assist apparatus and method where a bottle containing liquid eye medication is supported for convenient one-handed operation.
Description of Related Art
Human eyes are susceptible to various forms of disease and distress which may, at times, require the administration of liquid medicines or other soothing agents. The placement of these liquid medications into the eye very often is accomplished by depositing one or more drops of medicated liquid from a small container or bottle directly onto the eye while the patient reclines their head. The prescribed eye drops are either self-administered by the patient or administered by a caregiver. Self-administered eye drops can sometimes prove a challenge for the patient and can result in wasted medication. Some patients have poor eyesight. The act of focusing on the dispensing tip of the bottle to ensure proper drop alignment can be difficult for such patients. Some patients have arthritis or other fine motor skill issues, such that it is difficult to hold and squeeze the bottle without assistance. Some patients have a natural fear associated with administering eye drops, in which case their body senses and muscles are in such an excited state of apprehension that placing eye drops may take several tries to receive the correct number of drops. These and other problems can be compounded when the patient is elderly, infirm or a juvenile.
In the conventional way to self-administer eye drops, the patient uses both hands—one to hold the bottle and the other free hand to pull down on the lower eyelid. The head is tilted back, and then the dispensing tip of the bottle is aligned over the eye so that a drop will fall directly onto the exposed eye, usually recommended into the conjunctival sac region. This process is often immediately repeated for the other (second) eye. An optimal distance between bottle tip and eye can be difficult for a patient to judge for themselves when self-administering eye drops. Too close, and the bottle tip may contact the exposed eye. Too far and the drop may not land in the intended place, possibly even missing the eye entirely. Thus, the conventional way to self-administer eye drops carries an elevated risk of wasting medication (by missed drops), of contaminating the eye and/or bottle tip (by inadvertent contact with the patient's eye), is cumbersome especially for self-administered applications, and may even be impractical for some patients.
The prior art has proposed various apparatus to aide in the administration of eye drops. Such apparatus are designed to support a typical eye drop bottle and provide alignment assistance to help make the process of self-administering eye drops more convenient. Examples of such prior art eye drop assist devices may be seen, for examples, in: U.S. Pat. No. 3,058,466 to Routsong issued Oct. 16, 1962; U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,710 to Williams issued Oct. 13, 1992; and US Patent Publication No. 2010/0286634 to Marx published Nov. 11, 2010. Generally stated, these apparatus include features designed to support the eye drop bottle in combination with a locator that establishes an offset distance from some reference point on the user (e.g., nose, forehead, cheek, or lower eyelid) so that the bottle tip positions itself directly over one eye. Specific examples of prior art apparatus that utilize the top (i.e., bridge) of a patient's nose may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,934,590 to Campagna et al. issued Jan. 27, 1976; U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,403 to Johnsen et al. issued Jan. 16, 1979; U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,417 to Gibilisco issued Mar. 24, 1981; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,235,065 to Sorensen issued Jun. 26, 2007. In these examples, the locating feature takes the form of an inverted “V” designed to straddle the patient's nose, which provides an intuitive alignment strategy and suits a diverse range of patient sizes.
However, the prior art eye drop administration aides have several problems. Firstly, prior art devices are equipped with only one locating feature with which to help align the dispensing tip of the medicine bottle over the eyes. Whenever a patient must sequentially administer drops into their two eyes (e.g., the right eye then the left eye), the patient must rotate the apparatus or twist her hands when transferring the apparatus from the first eye to the second eye. Such a twisting or transferring motion can be uncomfortable or cumbersome for any patient, but is especially problematic for patients with fine motor skill issues, poor eyesight issues and those with high anxiety concerns. Furthermore, moving and repositioning the eye drop bottle between the two eyes substantially increases the risk of wasting drops and/or contaminating the patient's eyes. Another issue is that the prior art locator features that reference off the patient's nasal bridge tend to protrude dangerously close to the patient's eye inner corners which are very sensitive areas (e.g. Medial Canthus) where an upper and lower eyelids meet and may cause the eye to blink untimely. Furthermore, prior art locator features that merely straddle the patient's nasal bridge are susceptible to inadvertently sliding up or down the nose, thereby causing misalignment of the placed eye drop.
The prior art has attempted to address the inherent problems associated with moving and repositioning the eye drop bottle between the two eyes by adapting a swivelable or rotatable mechanism. Examples of such prior art apparatus may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 8,348,912 to Rehkemper issued Jan. 8, 2013, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,224 to Michalos issued Oct. 29, 1996. In these examples, a part holding the bottle can be swiveled or rotated in moving from the first eye to the second eye. However, there are still several drawbacks to these mechanized devices. When rotating the swivelable part from a first eye to a second eye, the patient still must twist their hand. Moreover, the patient's free hand is required to hold the apparatus during the rotation procedure which in effect means that the apparatus requires two handed operation—a difficulty for some patients. Secondly, the swiveling part is at high risk of swinging out of position just as the patient attempts to self-administer an eye drop thereby wasting one or more drops of medicine. A self-administering patient cannot easily hold steady the swiveling part with their free hand and at the same time pull down the lower eyelid. In addition, the swivelable mechanism increases manufacturing costs.
There is therefore a long-felt yet still unresolved need for a patient to self-administer medicated eye drops into both eyes using only one hand and in such a manner that medicated drops are not wasted. The eye drop assist device and method must be easily executed by patients that lack fine motor skill issues, suffer from poor eyesight and those with high anxiety concerns. Caregivers must also find such an assist device or method easy to use, intuitive to operate and preferably ambidextrous. Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved eye drop assist apparatus and method for sequentially administering ocular medication to a patient's two eyes that overcomes the inherent disadvantages and shortcomings of the prior art.